Ge You once said in the movie "Let the Bullets Fly": The road should be taken step by step, the steps are bigger, and it is easy to pull the egg.
Around the 19th century, Britain, which had achieved the achievement of "the sun never sets", began to hoard coal all over the world in order to achieve the great cause of permanent domination of the world. At that time, coal was a key energy source in the industrial countries, and with coal, the steam engine could operate efficiently, the iron mills could continuously process iron ore, and the steam fleet of the British Empire would always be able to walk sideways in the world. The idea is right, and the implementation is in place, but unfortunately, the global energy structure has changed.
By 1830, Britain accounted for 80% of the world's coal mines. The huge coal resources allowed Britain to produce far more iron than the other European powers combined. So is Britain's position stable? Unfortunately, no.
At the end of the 19th century, the internal combustion engine was born, and oil replaced coal as an emerging mainstream energy source. Britain's heavily stockpiled coal suddenly became a secondary energy reserve. More seriously, due to the excessive force on the road of coal storage, Britain has no money to reconstruct the oil economic system, and with it, Britain's industrial output has been surpassed by the United States and Germany.
As the saying goes, everything is too exhausted, and fate is bound to end early. Deliberately pursuing an extreme result, the market often reverses it. It is precisely because Britain did every step too well and too far ahead of time, so it led to the subsequent lag. Today, the Japanese auto industry seems to be facing a similar situation to that of Britain at the end of the 19th century.
First, the layout of carbon neutrality, Japan launched the "highest-end" decarbonization program
In the context of global warming, the world's major industrial countries have adopted a series of "decarbonization policies" in order to reduce carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality. Among them, the hydrogen combustion scheme proposed by Japan is the most direct and advanced.
In the automotive industry, which is most closely linked to decarbonization, the solution for most countries is to move from hybrid to electric and finally to hydrogen. The Japanese car companies are in place in one step, either fuel vehicles or hydrogen vehicles, and resolutely do not take the middle route. For example, Toyota President Akio Toyoda has repeatedly said that the biggest enemy of carbon neutrality is carbon dioxide, not the internal combustion engine. In response to the chronology of Japan's plan to restrict the development of fuel vehicles, Akio Toyoda openly contradicted it, saying that banning the sale of fuel vehicles will cause problems in related industries and may even destroy the Japanese economy.
Akio Toyoda's series of jumping remarks are aimed at attacking countries and companies that are eager to replace fuel vehicles with gas-electric hybrid and pure electric vehicles. So a group of Japanese car companies represented by Toyota are so resistant to new energy vehicles because they can't do it? It is not that in the field of new energy vehicles, Japanese car companies not only have technology, but also are very "advanced".
As mentioned earlier, the core concept of Japanese car companies is to realize the one-step implementation of new energy for automobiles. The use of the world's mainstream ternary lithium batteries or lithium iron phosphate batteries is still seriously polluted. At present, the source of electricity on the mainland is mainly through thermal power, nuclear power, hydropower, wind power and other means. According to statistics, 70% of the mainland's power structure is thermal power generation, and coal-fired power generation accounts for more than 60%. The power of pure electric vehicles comes from coal, which is not much different from the power of fuel vehicles from fuel, in terms of pollution and carbon emissions. Therefore, Japan does not give priority to the "electric vehicle" new energy vehicle track.
As early as 1974, Japan launched the "New Energy Development Plan", which set the development of fuel cell technology as one of the focus of the country's future strategy. In 1992, Japan officially laid out the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Shortly thereafter, Toyota, Honda and other car companies launched their own fuel cell vehicle planning programs.
After more than 20 years of development, in 2014, Toyota launched the MiRai, the world's first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. On the other hand, Japan is also actively laying out the construction of hydrogen energy facilities, and by 2020, Japan has built a total of 147 hydrogen refueling stations.
There is no doubt that Japan continues to be at the forefront of the world in the development and utilization of hydrogen energy and hydrogen fuel cell technology. However, all the way down, Japanese car companies are becoming less and less competitive on the track of new energy vehicles.
According to the global new energy vehicle sales list for the first 11 months of 2021, none of the Japanese car companies that have killed all four parties in the field of fuel vehicles have rushed into the top 10 of the list. The Toyota RAV 4, which can save the face of Japanese cars, is only ranked 15th on the list with sales of 57,000.
The core technology of this Toyota RAV 4 is likely to come from the Chinese new energy vehicle company BYD. In April 2020, the joint venture between Toyota and BYD was officially established. According to public information, Toyota-BYD's cooperation can be roughly summarized as: BYD out of technology, Toyota out of the brand. Specifically, the two sides use the BYD e platform and related technologies to design electrified new cars, and then "cloak" the Toyota shell to seize the market.
Why did Toyota, the world's second-largest auto company, "fall" to the use of Chinese automakers' technology? Where is Japan's "hydrogen fuel" program?
Second, the concept is the most advanced, why do Japanese companies become followers?
There are three main reasons why Japan's one-step strategy of "hydrogen fuel" is not popular:
1, the cost is high
Looking at the surpassing of latecomers in the new energy automobile industry to the industry's leading enterprises, the three words "cost performance" have played a very key role. In recent years, in the fields of semiconductors, mobile phones, power batteries, etc., South Korea and China have gradually surpassed Japan, which is closely related to the brand image of "good quality and close price". An important reason why Japan's hydrogen fuel route has not been recognized by the mainstream market is that it is too expensive.
Whether it is a hydrogen refueling station, a hydrogen fuel cell, or a hydrogen fuel vehicle, the cost is higher than that of the fuel vehicle supporting system. According to data calculations, the current cost of hydrogen fuel in the mainland is 60 yuan to 80 yuan / kg, which is at least twice as expensive as the commercial price of 30 yuan / kg. At present, Toyota's hydrogen energy car Mirai has a starting price of $49,500 in North America, equivalent to more than 300,000 yuan, and the same price can buy an Audi TT in North America.
Although Japan's hydrogen energy related research has reached the international first-class level, there is still no breakthrough in cost compression.
2, infrastructure mismatch
There are three main development routes for new energy vehicles, one is the hydrogen fuel cell route, the second is the lithium battery route, and the third is the oil-electric hybrid route. Most countries develop new energy vehicles, focusing on lithium batteries and hybrids, while also taking into account the development of hydrogen combustion systems. The only one whose mind is rooted in "hydrogen energy" is Japan.
The focus of development is different, and the investment in hydrogen energy facilities is also completely different. As of 2020, the total number of hydrogen refueling stations in the world is only 553. Taking the mainland as an example, in 2021, the mainland surpassed Japan with 157 hydrogen refueling stations and topped the global list. But this individual hydrogen refueling station may not be as large as the gas station in a provincial capital city on the mainland, let alone popularize hydrogen fuel vehicles across the country.
3. The industry standard set is too high
In recent years, we have found that many enterprises that have not yet gone abroad have the size of many established multinational companies, and the important reason for this is the billion-level consumer market that China sits on. And Japan does not have such an advantage. Because of the small domestic market, Japan has always adhered to an export-oriented economy.
However, new energy vehicles are not as good as traditional fuel vehicles, not as long as the car is built, it can pass the world. New energy vehicles also involve infrastructure construction, software system maintenance and other issues that do not need to be considered in the era of fuel vehicles. In particular, the introduction of hydrogen fuel vehicles in Japan is not suitable for the mainstream new energy vehicle market.
In addition, the pace and standards for the development and utilization of hydrogen energy in various countries in the world are not uniform. Japan's relevant standards for the application of hydrogen energy are too strict in the eyes of other countries, objectively delaying the popularization of hydrogen energy use and hindering the growth of Japan's hydrogen-fired automobile industry.
III. Conclusion
If the decline of the United Kingdom in that year was "into coal, defeat also coal", then Japan's defeat in the field of new energy vehicles can be called "success technology, failure also technology".
Until now, Japan's technology patents in the field of hydrogen energy development account for 30% of the world's total, ranking first in the world. However, the hydrogen energy system has been unable to form a closed loop for a long time, and it has technical advantages, so what is the use?
Therefore, never over-trust the factor that has made you successful, even if it has been infinitely close to the "truth."